Super Monkey Ball 2 is for anyone of any skill and has plenty of party games, but does have a few minor flaws.
Gameplay (7.9 out of 10):
The main game (7.3 out of 10):
You are given a ball and you must maneuver the ball safely to the goal, usually within a minute. It sounds easy, but it's not. There are some tricky platforms, narrow passageways, switches that must be activated (or deactivated), moving obstacles, seesaws, bumpers, and other hazards along the way. There are 3 initial difficulty settings but a fourth unlockable difficulty is available. The easiest, beginner course isn't any challenge, but the expert course has plenty of challenge to go around. By not using a continue, you can play the extra stages which are a bit more challenging than the main course. Story mode is otherwise the same as challenge mode, except you get infinite lives and can choose any of ten stages within a world. Clear all ten stages and you get to see the next part of the story's sequence with ten more stages available. Each group of ten stages has a new theme, such as the jungle, theme park, or the back yard of a house. In both modes, there's a map in the corner that gives the general layout of the stage to help find your way or where things are. The controls are surprisingly simple - just the joystick and the A button, and the joystick is used far more. The camera is acceptable, but could use a little work. For example, you need to fall off of a ledge to a hard-to-see platform or you need to rotate the ball to get onto some narrow ledge from a narrow passageway. It's rather tricky getting the camera oriented properly and the camera generally always faces in the direction you're going.
The party games (9.1 out of 10):
There are initially 6 party games available, but 6 more can be unlocked with play points. The party games include billiards (as four different modes (and by always using hard shots into the open on some games, it's easy to get numerous combo shots)), baseball (where you bat a rolled ball into slots), golf (like traditional golf games, but with a twist - courses with the monkey's faces, broken landscapes, and other wacky things), target (drop a ball onto a target to score while collecting goodies in flight), two races (boating and rolling) and several others. Played against the computer, the tennis game is almost impossible to win without having to use the pausing trick to reduce reaction time to 5 centiseconds or less (and even then it's very difficult) which makes the game no fun at all. With another player, however, it's more worth playing.
Bugs: I've found quite a few bugs in the game, mostly minor or harmless ones. In the baseball party game, it's possible to bat the ball entirely out of the stadium (as a foul) and the camera follows it revealing a black void. There's also occasional faulty collision where the ball goes inside of another. Another bug, a very annoying one to me, is that, when you get thrown up very high in the main stages or a little too far off the left and right sides, you get "fallout" even though you can return to the stage again. Also, by getting tossed up very high (such as with the "organic form" stage), and maneuvering the ball well outside the stage, the land is passable and you cannot land on it. I've fallen through the lava in the volcano world without being harmed (using the "inchworms" stage). Another bug is that, when going faster than 999 mph, the speed won't display the actual value and just displays "999" instead of 1300 or whatever it really is.
Super Monkey Ball 2 has some player freedom. Most of the player freedom is with the numerous minigames in the several configuration options there are. In most cases, the 4 characters that can be played have no difference in how they perform (like the main game and the billiards minigame), but some such as with the bowling party game, have differences. Gongon, for example, is very strong while baby is more accurate.
The most annoying thing about the game in general is the fact that the numerous replays that occur, which can causing a frustrating stage to become more frustrated, considering it cannot be disabled and you need to wait about a second, repeatedly pressing a button, just to prevent them from further playing but when another comes up again, you have to repeat this and they occur very frequently.
Graphics (7.2 out of 10):
The graphics are somewhat simple for the stage design - checkerboard patterns all over with some blended textures. The scenery, however, is quite decent, but is very unrealistically scaled. Sure the speed may say you're going 800 mph, but it seems more like 50 by looking at the scenery. The transparency of the ball and the smooth sphere design are the best parts. The jungle, boiling pot, and back yard worlds are the ones that look the best. The water is the least realistic-looking. When tossed up very high, strange things can be seen, mainly as missing land.
Sound (7.8 out of 10):
Of Super Monkey Ball 2's sound, the sound effects are better than its music. The music is a little boring but there are some good tunes, particularly worlds 6 and 7. The sound effects from bouncing after a lengthy fall, hitting balls in billiards, getting a strike in bowling, and some others are particularly decent. The downside is that the monkeys don't speak English and textual translations show up whereas the monkeys speak in their own language. The thing with the spell they seem to use a lot gets rather old, but these vocal effects are mainly isolated to story mode and rarely occur outside (other than that from falling off the stage, reaching the goal, and a few others).
Value (8.9 out of 10):
Super Monkey Ball 2 is worth getting for single and multiplayer modes. Getting up high is the primary thing I tend to do and I can get 1300 mph (speed shows as 999) with a great chance and I've found many stages where you can do this and make up other custom-made challenges to keep at playing the game. I once safely landed (fully stopped) in the area with the fish in the ocean world. These are just some examples of the available custom-made challenges which adds to the fun factor. I'm very likely to continue playing the game for several hundred more hours.
Tilt (6.5 out of 10):
Super Monkey Ball 2 doesn't seem that original considering the design of the levels is much like Marble Madness with some differences and some of the party games seem to be similar to other classics but with some degree of difference. The game has almost no violence (except the dogfight minigame has the most intense violence, but pineapples are used as weapons, and the fighting minigame which is where you try to knock opponents off the platform) and even 4-year-olds could join in on most of the fun.
Other comments:
Overall, Super Monkey Ball 2 is worth adding to your collection, especially if you have many players or have quite a few parties involving video games. If you like making up your own challenges and accomplishing them, Super Monkey Ball 2 offers quite a few. By stopping the clock with Gameshark-like cheats, you can get the true experience of 1500+ mph straight up and straight down.